SASE 2005: Abstracts Network B

Abstracts Network B/D - Globalization and Socio-Economic Development

Shahla Aliguliyeva (Oxfam GB, Azerbaijan)
E-Mail address: shahla_ramzi@yahoo.com
The Quantity and Quality of Polity in Azerbaijan: What Can We Do To Change Them?

The condition of democracy in Azerbaijan is not very promising. In fact it is a pseudo democracy. I believe that the reason for this is the bad polity. In fact the real polity in Azerbaijan consists of very few people: extremely corrupted officials. That largest part of the society, who are supposed to be the polity (at least in more or less normal democracies of Eastern Europe they are), the people, are extremely inactive and totally and dangerously indifferent about what happens around and what everything would look like if there was a normal polity in this country. This means that in order to change the situation, two factors need to be changed: (1) quantity of the polity (2) quality of the polity. But which one should be changed first? In this paper I argue that the quality of prospective polity has to be changed in order to make it real polity through claiming real representation and their role as polity. But how can it be done? What is the role of international organizations? How can the experience of Georgia and Ukraine be used? Is it true that roses do not grow in oil? These are the questions I will address.

Nina Bandelj (University of California, Irvine, USA)
Matthew Mahutga (University of California, Irvine, USA)
E-Mail address: nbandelj@uci.edu; mmahutga@uci.edu
Globalization and Income Inequality in Post-Socialist Europe (1989-2001)

While one of the tenets of state socialism was social equality, the collapse of the system brought significant changes to the social landscape of Central and Eastern Europe. The paper studies the factors that contribute to the rising social inequality in ten advanced post-socialist countries, from 1989 to 2001, with a special focus on the influence of foreign capital penetration after the fall of state-socialism. We find that foreign capital penetration, even in short term, has a consistent positive effect on inequality in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, which supports the investment dependence perspective. In addition, size of employment in agriculture and sector dualism, as well as population decline exacerbate inequality while institutions that protect the bargaining power of labor alleviate it. We argue that the initial political and economic conditions after the collapse of state-socialism, and the paths of subsequent societal transformations, significantly influence the extent of income inequality in individual post-socialist countries. Our findings also help us reconsider some insights of the traditional Kuznets development and inequality thesis. Overall, we suggest that inequality research incorporate case specific knowledge that illuminates the mechanisms underlying income inequality trends across time and space.

Camila de Sousa Braga (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro - PUC-Rio, Brazil)
Hélène Bertrand (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro - PUC-Rio, Brazil)
E-mail: camila@iag.puc-rio.br; bertrand@iag.puc-rio.br
The Challenges of Global Corporate Strategies

Globalization provides several opportunities to companies, including access to multiple markets, new revenues, knowledge and technologies, that increases their competitivity. On the other hand, it generates a series of threats within an environment of worldwide growing instability, originated from social and geopolitical conflicts, together with financial and economical risks. Moreover, the solidification of an unstable global economical system is at the heart of such conflicts and risks. Such aspects of the Globalization process, both the positive and negative ones, may cause aggressive disturbances and oscillations in the markets, creating challenges to the global corporate strategic management. The modern approaches to managerial globalization process take into account both these aspects, opportunities and threats, however in an unordered way. In this work we present a qualitative analysis of the main approaches to global companies, aiming to pinpoint the challenges of corporate management of companies under globalization. Moreover, we demonstrate that a search for alternatives to a company's survival and domestic independence requires a change of perspective regarding their administrative functions and the formulation and implementation of their strategies, in order to define the necessary infrastructure to allow its business growth. It is also shown that a search for new markets requires several dynamic abilities but also a systematic method to manage internal and external challenges.

Maria Chiarvesio (University of Udine, Italy)
Eleonora Di Maria (University of Padua, Italy)
Stefano Micelli (University of Venice, Italy)
E-Mail address: chiarvesio@uniud.it; eleonora.dimaria@unipd.it; micelli@unive.it
Internationalization and Global Value Chains of Italian Industrial Districts

For many years, studies on globalization have focused mainly on big corporations, the most active players in those processes. Studies on multinational companies highlighted strategic and organizational implications of internationalization by emphasizing the firm's perspective (focus on FDIs, or foreign direct investments). In recent times, however, small and medium enterprises of industrial districts have developed aggressive strategies to extend their sales networks and local supply chains abroad. Opening the local business-to-business networks toward a global dimension can have many different implications, either positive or negative, in terms of impacts on well-established sources of firms' competitive advantages (competencies, knowledge management, human resources, innovation). At the same time, such processes transform the relationship between small firms and the local context, opening new evolutionary scenarios for their territories. Consequently, the need for new methods to analyze and measure those internationalization trends arises, beyond the FDI viewpoint. Based on a new approach, the paper intends to examine internationalization of Italian industrial districts, considered among the most competitive clusters worldwide.

Dragana Cvijanovic (University of Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro)
E-Mail address: dadushka@finsoft.co.uk
The Euro-Atlantic Rift: Remedies and Repercussions for the Balkan Region

In this paper we are trying to analyze Euro-Atlantic relations from several aspects, arguing that only if we can grasp the differences in cultural and economic values, the lessons of the past and the strategic and political agendas of both sides, we can embrace the task of reconciliation between the US and Europe. Through analysis of possible scenarios for geopolitical and economical future of the Balkans, it will be argued that the only way to reach a stable and prosperous Balkan area, will be through a revitalized transatlantic partnership. We examine its cultural, societal and historical background, further assessing its contractual aspect, and the general framework of changes in their roles and balances through evolving geopolitical strategies of the allies. Institutional and regional analysis of the impact of the latest wave of enlargement in 2004 follows. Ideas and recommendations for remedies to the present transatlantic crisis precede the discussion on three possible scenarios for Balkan states depending on the future of the Euro-Atlantic debate. We conclude by capturing the main ideas presented in the paper with respect to finding the most suitable remedy to the present Euro-Atlantic strain.

Alexander Ebner (University of Erfurt, Germany)
E-Mail address: alexander.ebner@uni-erfurt.de
Entrepreneurship in Post-Socialist Economies: Social Capital, Business Networks and Path-Dependent Institutional Change

Reconsidering the institutional embeddedness of entrepreneurship pinpoints decisive problems in post-socialist transformation that involve disembedding procedures of market creation as well as the re-embedding of these markets in a new institutional framework. Accordingly, the situation of post-socialist economies may be interpreted in terms of a transformation of governance mechanisms, which hint at the impact of social capital. However, the notion of path dependent institutional change underlines that every national or regional system of institutions is historically rooted in distinct configurations which mark entrepreneurial behavior. Thus, entrepreneurship policies face the inertia of values and belief systems as well as the negotiated bargaining character of consensus-building. In discussing that matter, the paper refers to the empirical results of a research project on the cooperation behavior of small and medium sized enterprises in the East German region of Thuringia, which is historically to be assessed as a key region of German industrialization yet currently struggling with the lack of cooperation among these enterprises. The limits in the design of policies for the promotion of entrepreneurship and cooperative business attitudes then point to the tension between construction and evolution in the institutional procedures of capitalist development.

Evgeni Iliev Evgeniev (Central European University,Hungary)
E-Mail address: evgeni.evgeniev@iue.it
Transnational Light vs. National Light Sector: Textile and Apparel Industry in the European Periphery

The main object of the paper is to study the difference in upgrading on the micro (textile and apparel firms) and meso (export structure of the industry) level in two peripheral states. The attempt is to embrace the domestic (the interaction between State and Sectoral interest) and international dimension (international legal instruments, organization of transnational production networks) of the European (core) apparel commodity chain. The puzzle in this particular study is that there is a difference between countries from the European periphery (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey) in terms of development of the local textile and apparel firms and the whole T/C structure. The specific research question is: How come firms and sectors have managed to upgrade while others could not, if all industries were transnationalized in similar ways by Western European firms? In other words: Why does Western European transnationalization of the textile and apparel activities has different implications in the European peripheral countries in the post-1982 period? The paper uses Global Commodity Chains approach to study networks of firms from the East and the West of Europe, but also relies on the sectoral approach to identify upgrading at the industry level.

Shuwei Huang (Lancaster University, United Kingdom)
E-Mail address: shuweian@hotmail.com
The Rescaling of Gateway City: Singapore Case Study

A creative idea needs exact research to test it. "World city hierarchy" is a good example. Different to Friedmann's concept which divides world cities into three vertical subsystems, Taylor demonstrates the hierarchy of network by visualizing the world cities on different positions within the map of contour lines which reflected the fact that it is the leading West European and Pacific Asian cities rather than US cities that constitute the dense middle of the core just 'below' London and New York. Taylor calls these Asian cities 'gateway cities' with 'network power', but he does not answer what is the base of 'network power' and how the city-state could keep its gateway position in nowadays. In this paper, I will use Singapore as the case study to analyze how the city-state could keep its gateway position through state rescaling. I would argue that: before 1990s, the fast industrialization of manufacturing sector was the base for Singapore's network power; but after 1990s, the service sector, especially the finance sector, has become the core for state rescaling and network power. And from my point of view, the importance of finance sector is not a brand new phenomenon, but a path-dependence.

Alexander Libman (Institute of International Economic and Political Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia)
E-Mail address: libman@rambler.ru
Globalization and Outcomes of Institutional Competition

Institutional competition, or competition of countries for mobile individuals and organizations by changing the system of formal institutions and adopting it to the demands of mobile groups and individuals, is considered to be an important element of globalization. A popular view is that institutional competition improves the quality of institutions, because it acts as discovery process and additional control mechanism for the government. The outcome of institutional competition is always better institutions. Hidden assumptions underlying this thesis are first, that the individuals and organizations prefer transaction-cost-efficient institutions and second, that the government is interested in attracting mobile individuals and organizations. These assumptions, however, are correct only under specific institutional environment. There are different reasons for individuals to support low-quality institutions (including the redistribution effects, path dependence and mental models and deficit of trust). Governments may also prefer low immigration. Do these reasons exist also under environment of institutional competition? The main question is also whether the new logic created by institutional competition changes old behavior patterns and establishes better institutions, or are outcomes of institutional competition shaped by original institutional environment and may be inefficient? The paper supports the second answer analyzing experience of post-Soviet states.

Guillaume Faburel (University Paris XII, France)
E-Mail address: faburel@univ-paris12.fr
To Represent Lay-Persons in Decision Making Process. A New Role for Economic Valuation and Indicators of Social Costs? Controversies About the Environmental Impacts of Transports

The approach developed here deals with the measure and its codification by the expert during the decision-making process. More precisely, our objective is to show that the conventional indicators of measure of externalities and environmental costs (Willingness To Pay - WTP) can, when applied to situations of controversies and environmental conflicts, answer, partially, to the new aspirations of the population. Dealing with noise nuisance related to transport, their perception by the population and their consideration in the decision-making process, the paper is structured around a chronology of several researches, involving Economics, Social Psychology and Political Sciences, linked with various kind of results (statistical and comprehensive one): WTP declared (Contingent Valuation Method) to assess the social cost of aircraft noise in French urban setting (2001); focus groups to estimate the social acceptability of this method and the data collected (2002); in-depth interviews with various European and American airport stakeholders to understand the general meaning of the particular interpretation made by the airport local residents (2003); then again declared WTP (2004) with focus on the socio-political determinations of attitudes and opinions. It stems from this research three main conclusions on the role and use of these indicators.

Tengiz Lomitashvili (Sate University of Tbilisi, Gerogia)
E-Mail address: tlomitashvili@yahoo.co.uk
The Economic Growth Competitiveness and the Countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States

The main goal of our attempt is to assess the growth drivers in the CIS countries and construct an index through which these countries are ranked according to their growth prospects. One of the main advantages of our research is that we attempted to apply the systemic approach in terms of economic growth. This approach enabled us to examine the efforts of some of those scholars who, in all the sub-fields of development - economic growth, social change, political development, tried to transcend the segmentary divisions imposed on them by their respective disciplines and find interrelations between those segments. We try to introduce the conceptual model of growth, which is applied by "the Global Competitiveness Report"- a prominent project conducted in the framework of the World Economic Forum. On the basis of it, we try to construct modified growth competitiveness indices for CIS countries, as most of them are not included in the rankings of "the Global Competitiveness Report". We use modified methodology and input factors such as the rate of growth of real GDP per capita, trade openness, communication indicators, human resource development, employment, productivity indicators etc. According to the final rankings results, Georgia occupies the tenth place within the group of 12 countries (data belongs to 2000), which indicates to very slight prospects of growth in Georgia.

Xavier Lemaire (University of Warwick, United Kingdom)
E-Mail address: Xavier.Lemaire@warwick.ac.uk
Urban Governance and the Use of Sustainable Indicators in the UK

This paper relies on field research on the role and the use of sustainable indicators in the UK. Environmental indicators (e.g. noise pollution or air quality) are now put forward by policy-makers as a way to improve urban governance. Constantly refined, mobilizing engineers on the definition of the most rational measure of a phenomenon as well as politicians and local communities with their own representations, each indicator brings together various actors who exchange their views to determine a common ground and negotiate their political power. They are also used to shape the public image of a city. In the competition between metropolitan areas, the city with the last generation of indicators can use them as a showcase of its commitment to the ideal of sustainability. Therefore, potential investors and inhabitants are attracted not only by the quality of life of a city but more fundamentally by its capacity of self-governance through the dynamic control of its environment. But indicators in the UK are also used by the central government as instruments of benchmarking to monitor more closely local authorities.

Marcus Melo (Federal University, Brazil)
E-Mail address: marcus.melo@uol.com.br
The Divergent Paths of Taxation in Brazil and Argentina: State-building, Institutions and Trust

The paper discusses the determinants of the capacity to tax from a long term historical perspective. The paper explores the divergent paths of Argentina and Brazil. They are similar in many ways but exhibit very different taxation levels. Among the institutional similarities is the fact that both countries are federal structures and are very decentralized. However they differ dramatically both in terms of state capacity and in the functioning of the political system. The Brazilian case is interesting in itself because Brazil has the highest tax burden of the developing world and, in comparative terms, has an efficient and professionalized tax bureaucracy. Argentina has a much lower tax burden and an inefficient tax bureaucracy. These countries also differ in a crucial way: the degree of legitimacy enjoyed by the tax system. Lack of legitimacy coupled with instability and weak institutional capabilities help explain Argentina's very high level of tax evasion. The paper provides an account of how these capabilities evolved over time (1880-1994) and how they shaped the tax systems in the two countries. I argue that path dependence mechanisms at the base of the formation of the political institutions and the "tax state" help explain the divergent outcomes.

Debkumar Mukhopadhyay (Maynaguri College, India)
E-Mail address: maynaguricollege@rediffmail.com
A Study of Regional Disparity in the Industrial Sector in Mexico in the Context of the Globalization of Mexican Economy

The problem of regional disparity in the industrial sector in Mexico is a historical truth. The globalization drive could not reduce this disparity; rather it widened the gap. After NAFTA's first year, the Mexican economy fell into one of the worse crisis it has ever experienced. This paper tries to prove that regional disparity is a historical truth in Mexico. Secondly, the gap in respect of industrial development between north and south still exists. Thirdly, the globalization drive could not reduce the regional disparity; rather it accentuated the gap. What Mexico requires is a balanced industrial policy what it really lacked. Among other recommendations, I strongly recommend democratic decentralization with a three-tier system for Mexico.

Marian Negoita ( UC Davis, USA)
E-Mail address: mnegoita@ucdavis.edu
Privatization and Development in Post-Communist Countries: A Fuzzy-Set Approach

The present study focuses on the relationship between privatization and economic development in post-communist countries. An influential approach in the post-communist literature finds a positive relationship between privatization and economic development. Another strand in the literature opposes this view, sustaining that large-scale privatization is associated with post-communist involution. In this paper, I argue that privatization contributes to economic development only in certain institutional conditions. These conditions refer to the state's capacity to sustain the institutional infrastructure associated with capitalist investment and the ability of privatization to reinsert successfully the post-communist economy into the world system. In order to evaluate the theoretical propositions advanced above, I chose a comparative design based on the fuzzy-set approach. For the purposes of this study, I included in the analysis 29 post-communist countries for which data were available. Several causal factors are evaluated: privatization, foreign investment, integration into the world system, and state capacity (despotic power versus regulatory power). The data analysis shows that, indeed, privatization is neither necessary nor sufficient a cause of development. Other causal factors such as foreign investment and state capacity outweigh privatization as a foundation of development in post-communism.

Anastassia Obydenkova (European University Institute, Italy)
E-Mail address: aobydenk@iue.it
European Integration and Regionalization

This paper examines the role of external factor on the regions, or constituent units (CUs), of a federal multi-ethnic state in regime transition, Russian Federation. Given that the initiative of the European countries and organizations are the most numerous, and, therefore, their neighborhood is the most influential on the process of transition, we focus on the process of the European integration from here on E.I.) as the most powerful external factor and its influence on the regions. Therefore, we examine the process of the regionalization of foreign policy versus the process of federalization and the interplay of domestic and foreign factors. Networking and cross-border cooperation are seen as possible tools to facilitate the transition to market economy and democracy. The "regional" approach to integration across the countries stresses the geo-economic interpretation of the international system over the traditional geopolitical one. Naturally, the regions enjoy only light diplomatic competence and their foreign activity is limited to "low policy" issue areas. Notwithstanding the difference in scope between federal foreign policy and activity of the regions, between the impact of the E.I. on the country as a whole and individual regions, there is still a growing involvement of the Russia's regions into the process of E.I.

Anastassia Obydenkova (European University Institute, Italy)
E-Mail address: aobydenk@iue.it
The Paradox of Democratization and Federalization in the Russian Regions

This paper analyzes the experience of federalization and regime transition as two interconnected process. It looks at federalization and explores the issue of causation of federal arrangement and the "context" of the reforms taking into account such issues as ethnicity, geopolitics, and wealth. It argues that federal asymmetry was a necessity in accommodating the regions which are so diverse across ethnical, geopolitical, and economic lines. These three factors caused the asymmetrical federal arrangement of the RF during the transitional period (Hypothesis 1). The paper will analyze each of these factors and then will test the hypothesis. The second part of the paper, analyzes the connection between federalization and democratization. The second hypothesis is that the asymmetrical federal arrangement in Russia actually caused the differences in regime transition in the regions (Hypothesis 2). I expect to find a negative correlation between the federal status of the CU, and the level of democratization. The analysis of the regime transformation in the regions includes the N-large study that analyses the press freedom in the regions, as one of the main indicators of a democratic regime. The methods of correlation, quadratic regression, and regression analysis help to test the validity of the second hypothesis. To identify the real causes of the disparities in regional regimes, we need, firstly, to analyze the causes of the asymmetrical arrangement. I expect to find three factors ethnicity, economic development, and geopolitics having caused (1) the establishment of highly asymmetrical federalism (H. 1.1, H. 1.2, and H. 1.3); and (2) this influenced the differences in the regimes across the regions. However, I also examine the possible links between federal status and regime change (H. 2).

Geny Piotti (Max-Planck-Institut for the Study of Society, Germany)
E-Mail address: gpiotti1@gwdg.de
External Investments and Local Resources: The Challenge of Their Bridging in the Development Policies

Development policies in the transition countries are often oriented to the attraction of external investments that are supposed to spread economic development almost automatically. In many cases these kinds of policies did not prove to be as effective as initially expected. The term "cathedral in the desert" has been referred to phenomena of isolation and disembeddedness of the big corporations in developing regions. In these cases, the decision of withdrawing from the investment region has often led to the collapse of the local economy. The paper presents a case of relative success of the top-down development strategies - the automobile industry in Zwickau in Eastern Germany- and points to the preconditions of this success. In particular it stresses the role of local institutions in carrying out policies aimed at reinforcing innovation and cooperation among the local and external economic actors.

Mizanur Rahman (National University of Singapore, Singapore)
E-Mail address: arirmm@nus.edu.sg
Globalization, Migration and Poverty: The Case of Bangladesh

Migration is not a new thing. People have always left their homes in search of better economic opportunities outside of their own homeland. But economic globalization has put a new spin on global migration, causing global uprootedness and human displacement on an unprecedented scale. Because economic globalization exacerbates the inequalities between nations, migration for many becomes not a choice, but an economic necessity. Bangladesh, a heavily indebted developing country, is not an exceptional case in this regard. This paper focuses on the role played by migrants' remittances to their families in Bangladesh. Bangladesh received around US$ 27 billion remittances from its migrant population between 1976 and 2003 and remittances to Bangladesh in 2003 were around US$ 3 billion. The direct links of remittances to low-income migrant households make remittances a potentially important tool for alleviating poverty and raising living standards in Bangladesh. The broader objectives of this paper are to provide an overview of the importance of international migration and remittances for Bangladesh and to explore how remittances and migration might affect poverty scenario in Bangladesh. The data for this research comes from fieldwork conducted in Bangladesh in 2004.

Jose Ricardo Ramalho (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
E-Mail address: jramalho@ifcs.ufrj.br
Local Strategies for Development Within a Context of New Experiences of Lean Production

The purpose of the paper is to discuss questions related to patterns of political and institutional participation, from new experiences of economic development in local contexts, stimulated by the presence of companies that are part of global productive chains. The empirical reference is the situation created by the dynamics of the Brazilian automotive industry in the 1990s, which has passed through a process of restructuring and increase of its productive activities (new investments and new plants), causing great impact over old and new industrialized regions of the country. The intention is to argue, from a case study of recent installation of new car plants in Brazil, that even in a situation in which the initial decision of those companies for new places had opportunistic motivation (fiscal incentives, generous public loans, cheap labor etc), with no perspective of cooperation with the local economic and political institutions, there can emerge initiatives of mobilization and social intervention in order to interfere in industrial policies and to stimulate activities of collaboration aiming at the development of the locality.

Elisa P. Reis (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
E-Mail address: epreis@alternex.com.br
New Ways of Relating Authority and Solidarity?

As the patterns of interaction of national states with both market and civil society experience significant changes under the impact of global processes, the common wisdom prevailing within the social sciences is shaken and new approaches are needed to understand how authority and solidarity are articulated. Can we anticipate the major consequences of such changes for societal organization? To cope with such a challenging agenda, social sciences must undertake great theoretical and empirical efforts. Interdisciplinary collaboration and comparative exercises will be crucial in order to assess the macro changes of the present in a systematic way. The paper to be presented constitutes a small contribution within the broad perspective above sketched. In particular it comments on the initial stages of a study on the patterns of interaction between the State and NGOs in Brazil.

J. Terry Rolfe (University of Saskatchewan, Canada)
E-Mail address: tsrolfe@aol.com
Integrating Vulnerabilities into Managed Systems: Vulnerabilities into Managed Systems: Water Supply in the South Saskatchewan River Basin

The management of water supply within the South Saskatchewan River Basin is a highly sophisticated endeavor, worthy of appreciation. The extensive infrastructure and precise management systems have reduced damage from periodic, extreme events and optimized agricultural opportunities across southern Alberta and Saskatchewan. The landscape has been transformed: wetlands, natural prairie and scrub have given way to more uniform, productive fields and the controlled waterways and lakes contribute to recreational and scenic enjoyment. The prairie is a culturally-molded ecosystem (CEC, 1997) with the realms of land and water cast in stark, superficial polarity. The prospects of human-induced climate change in this region pose interesting challenges for water managers and policy makers alike. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) requires its parties formulate and implement programs to facilitate adaptation, identifying vulnerabilities which may not only arise due to socio-economic sensitivities, but from ecosystemic responses overall. Within this broader framework, it is reasonable to ask: Can we be too successful, if success is defined in traditional economic terms? The scope of socio-economics has often been limited to activities whose values can be quantified in monetary terms. There remains, however, the need to not only reconcile these human values with non-anthropocentric concerns about minimum instream flows and the stabilizing and repertoire-enhancing ecological benefits of extreme events, but with qualitative human values themselves. As commonly envisioned, vulnerability can be gauged in terms of the sensitivities of various ecosystemic components to environmental exposures, with community-based resilience influencing the need to cope or adapt. Where population sensitivities reflect response averages, in recommended maximum exposures or minimum daily allowances, there is a tendency to overlook the vulnerability of those on the margin along with the site-specific dynamics of exposure. If qualitative human values are integrated into socio-economics and ethics are applied, our human adaptive solutions may be more aligned with ecosystemic responses which are highly sensitive to thresholds. Such an argument implies that we need to re-examine our management systems if their optimization relies upon averages, as we may need to become more attuned to the value of response at the extremes.

Manuel Angel Santana Turagano (Universidad de La Laguna, Spain)
E-Mail address: masantur@ull.es
Tourist Development and Employment: A Case Study

This article studies factors determining the quality of tourism employment, through the case study of Maspalomas (Canary Islands), one of Europe's most important tourist destinations. Results show that labor conditions in tourism depend upon the position of a destination in international tourism and the extent in which tourism is sustained by local communities. Furthermore, the study suggests that employment should not be the only factor considered when evaluating the "kindness" of a model of tourist development. The distribution of tourism benefits through enterprises' profits should also be taken into account.

Laura Sartori (University of Bologna, Italy)
E-Mail address: sartori@dsc.unibo.it
Digital Divide and Digital Inequalities in Italy

We can trace back to 1995 the emergence of the term "digital divide". Since then many studies have studied and tried to acknowledge what differences gender, age, education, race and income -among others- can make in terms of access to the Internet and to new digital technology. Internet access has been proven to be a huge resource for those who can benefit from it but also an important source of inequality and to new digital technology. More recently, attention has turned to inequalities, which arise from the use of the Internet once actors have access (digital inequalities) Differences in the use of the Internet can produce or reinforce uneven opportunities in economic, social and political participation. In this paper, quantitative data are used to describe the Italian case. We start comparing Italy to other countries on a variety of important dimensions to the digital divide (e.g. gender, age, education). A more detailed analysis of differences in access is also carried out only on the Italian case -both at family and individual level. A comparison to the mobile phone is also offered. Then, we turn to the differences in the use of the Internet at the individual level.

Robert Schwartz ( Mount Holyoke College, USA)
E-Mail address: rschwart@mtholyoke.edu
Political Economy in Time and Space: Railways and Uneven Development in Great Britain and France, 1830-1914

This comparative study joins temporal and spatial analysis to investigate the transport revolution of the long nineteenth-century and its varying effects on rural society in France and Britain. Applying recent advances in quantitative geography, it relates patterns of railway expansion to the restructuring of agriculture and rural population change. It examines when and to what extent railways reinforced or modified spatial hierarchies linking local, regional, and national centers of production and consumption. Positioned within these broader patterns, local examples identify causal mechanisms of agrarian change and migration.

Taruna Shalini Ramessur Seenarain (University of Technology, Mauritius)
E-Mail address: RSshalini@utm.intnet.mu
Trade Liberalization and Poverty Alleviation in Mauritius

In the last 40 years of the 20th century, several countries have been highly successful in increasing incomes and reducing poverty. Most notable, has been the experience of the South-East Asian economies, especially Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan (China) and Korea. In the final 15 years of the century, Mauritius also saw remarkable increases in income. Although export expansion is the common element to all the success stories of poverty reduction, there are considerable differences in the models of trade policy that these countries have adopted. The experience of Mauritius provides an example of a country that expanded exports significantly and reduced poverty through EPZs in a trade regime that was not liberal overall. The country however, now faces a number of challenges emanating in particular as a result of changes taking place at the international level. Multilateral trade liberalization process emboldened by the advent of the World Trade Organization has led to a decline in the preferential margins of Mauritius on its traditional markets and has exposed the economy to global competition. This paper explains how to implement trade liberalization as a key component of a strategy to alleviate poverty in Mauritius.

Ekaterina Smirnova (European University at St. Petersburg, Russia)
E-Mail address: smirnova@ES4429.spb.edu
Migration of Russian Scientists: Tendencies and Perspectives

What is the nature of contemporary labor migration within scientific community? Does it have a circulatory or irreversible character? Can it be considered as a specific type of international collaboration enriching the research facilities in both highly developed and developing countries, or should it be rather referred to as a 'brain drain'? These are the main questions of the present paper. The empirical data were collected by questioning and interviewing Russian natural scientists having a good experience in working abroad. These data were interpreted within theoretical concept of transnationalism, which seems to be quite promising in describing the development of circulatory networks within the international scientific community. Empirical data show that the current scientific migration cannot be adequately described within the paradigm of 'brain drain'. In fact, a new transitional scientific community created by 'wandering' scientists has appeared. This category of 'wandering' scientists, weakly connected with a concrete geographical address (since for both financial and scientific reasons they often change their working place), may be called 'scientific transmigrants'. They neither 'flow away' nor 'flow in' anywhere; they rather 'overflow' from one employment to another within a global scientific network.

Lourdes Sola (University of Son Paulo, Brazil)
E-Mail address: loursola@usp.br
Monetary Authority in Emerging Market Democracies: Brazil in Comparative Perspective

The establishment and effective exercise of monetary authority by "autonomous" central banks stand high as major criteria of performance by which the institutional development of emerging market economies is evaluated by international investors and orthodox economists. The underlying assumption is that "politics" and in particular democratization may put in jeopardy the sustained stabilization of prices and of expectations- and ultimately affect the prospects of economic growth and integration in the international system. Its normative and policy correlates are best condensed in the predicament, "getting the institutions right first": central bank autonomy is presented as a prerequisite to economic and financial order. The paper examines critically the analytical framework underlying this paradigm and the corresponding criteria of performance in the light of the Brazilian experience of economic stabilization and incremental financial reform. Following a path dependency approach we invert the causal explanation: a change in the criteria of legitimation inseparable from democratization was a major condition of economic stabilization and for the exercise of monetary authority by a central bank weakened by hyperinflation.

Christopher Swader (University of Bremen, Germany)
E-Mail address: cswader@gsss.uni-bremen.de
Theorizing Social Value Shifts and Normlessness from Structural Economic Change in Post-Communist Countries

This paper theorizes deteriorations in social values, or those values emphasizing relationships, face-to-face communication, social bonds, and families, in post-Communist countries. It is hypothesized that values in these societies have become more individualistic, materialistic, rationalistic, and correspondingly, less social as a result of the structural shift to a capitalist economy. Rising material aspirations, increased frequency of rational cost-benefit analyses in the social sphere, and exploitation of others for material gain have undermined the valuation of relationships upon which informal social control depends. The result of this process is normlessness, thereby explaining the increasing anomie, alienation, and delinquency and crime in these countries since the transformations began.

Stuart Umpleby (George Washington University, USA)
E-Mail address: umpleby@gwu.edu
Quadrant Diagrams: A Method for Describing Political Positions and Social Change

This paper will present a variety of examples of quadrant diagrams, illustrating the wide range of their uses in describing the complexity of social systems and how they change. Political positions often differ on more than one dimension. Making a quadrant diagram using two dimensions defines four political positions. These four positions sometimes call attention to one or two positions that were previously not noticed. Left - right political swings over time, when represented on a quadrant diagram, often become a cycle involving two or more quadrants. Quadrant diagrams can be used to depict the additional complexity that results from introducing an additional dimension, for example Fukuyama's diagrams showing concern with the strength of government in addition to the scope of government (e.g., size of welfare programs). Quadrant diagrams also offer a way to compare the evolution of two or more countries, for example the choice of Russia to emphasize democracy over markets in the early 1990s and the choice of China to expand markets before permitting more than one political party. (For the session on Comparative Dynamics organized by Karl Mueller)

Mario Volpe (University of Venice Ca' Foscari, Italy)
Giancarlo Coro' (University of Venice, Italy)
E-Mail address: mvolpe@unive.it; corog@unive.it
International Extension of Global Value Chain: The Case of European Traditional Sectors

The issue of international outsourcing is highly diversified, in terms of sectors, size of firms involved, local and hostel labor markets. We will focus our attention on the phenomenon of international outsourcing experimented by European countries in traditional, mature sector, pushed forward mainly by SME's clusters, which is causing a deep debate on the fear of loosing a significant portion of supply base and eventually competition in the long run. We will assess whether the process is associated with an increase in innovation, competition and related effects in labor demand. We will tackle the issue qualitatively as well as quantitatively, assessing: a) the degree of international outsourcing of some European countries in traditional sectors, using statistical tools well suited for SME's and clusters of firms (not only FDI, but measures of international integration of correlated flows of intermediate goods); b) assessing the change in demand of labor in outsourcing clusters; c) assessing the nature of effects on the hostel country labor market and on entrepreneurial activity. Some consideration about required policies, in terms of labor market, industrial and innovation policy as well as international cooperation, will close the paper.

Josh Whitford (Columbia University, USA)
Aldo Enrietti (University of Turin, Italy)
E-Mail address: jw2212@columbia.edu; aldo.enrietti@unito.it
Surviving the Fall of a King: The Regional Institutional Implications of Crisis at Fiat Auto

The paper discusses developments in the famously automotive-centered productive system in Turin and the surrounding Piedmont region in the wake of major crisis at Fiat Auto. This large, articulated and internationally competitive productive system emerged from interactions between Fiat, its suppliers, and other regional actors, but has always had Fiat at its center in a directive role, as the sole actor with both the interest and the ability to provide key collective goods. The automaker is today dramatically weakened, leaving the Piedmont region with an essential and unanswered question: what will happen to the networks of relationships and diversity of productive services if Fiat Auto does - as seems likely - cease to play its historic "monarchical" role? To answer this question, the paper draws on literatures in comparative political economy, economic sociology and institutionalist economic geography concerned with path dependency and the decentralized coordination of production. It traces the territorially embedded development of the Piedmontese automotive components industry as it has been constructed through Fiat's contradictory interaction with the productive hinterland, assesses possible futures, and discusses the feasibility of constructing new associational governance institutions in the Piedmontese regional political economy.

Hao Yuan (University of Bremen, Germany)
E-Mail address: hyuan@gsss.uni-bremen.de
Economic Transition and Subjective Well-being: A Comparison Between China and East Germany

High economic growth brings about no increase in subjective well-being (SWB) in East Germany and even a great decline in China. This paper tries to explain how economic transition impacts on SWB, by using an empirical data from World Values Surveys. We find that high income groups do not enjoy an increasing SWB but low income groups suffer a great decline in SWB. The negative effect of unemployment is significant in East Germany and keeps insignificant in China. The effect of political capital keeps significant in China and turns insignificant in East Germany, while education has a positive association with SWB in East Germany but no important effect in China. These findings suggest that economic institutional settings determine the roles of income, unemployment, education and political status on SWB.

Philippe Zittoun (ENTPE, France)
E-Mail address: zittoun@entpe.fr
Urban Governance and the Use of Sustainable Indicators in France

During the last years, the reference to sustainable indicators like air quality or noise pollution has been on the rise in France. These indicators contribute to the emergence of a specific problem. By giving to reality a numerical visibility and a color, these indicators manufacture and reveal the world. Indicators like air quality or noise pollution have now on top of that another dimension: the computerized simulation of a phenomenon goes with its empirical measurement. Relying on the simulation from transmitting sources, the instrument does not only oblige the experts to identify the "culprits" but also to design some possible instruments of public action. In other words, the indicators modify the relations between the experts (and their knowledge) and the politicians. Based on the case of several French cities, this paper proposes to analyze the way in which these links can reconstitute themselves and shape urban governance.